Mercedes is ready to make use of the ultimate Method 1 races of the season to achieve additional understanding of its weaknesses, having accepted it should end fourth within the constructors’ standings.
The Silver Arrows displayed a flip in fortunes mid-season and after a winless 2023 picked up three race victories throughout the summer time.
George Russell capitalised on contact between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris to win in Austria, earlier than Lewis Hamilton took two race wins in Britain and Belgium, however the crew has didn’t proceed that type into the tip of the marketing campaign.
Though Russell initially led early within the moist circumstances at Interlagos final outing, he fell to fourth after pitting earlier than the crimson flag to increase a run of races with out a podium relationship again to the September’s Azerbaijan GP, when Russell inherited third after Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez’s late tangle.
With the hole to Purple Bull in third now 162 factors, and having seen its struggles lie in related areas for the reason that daybreak of the ground-effect period, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin insisted the crew would now concentrate on easy methods to get on high of these points for 2025 and the ultimate yr of the present rule cycle.
“The principle factor by way of studying is that the corners that we’re weak in are nonetheless the identical ones. It’s the interconnected, gradual corners. That’s usually the place we journey up,” defined Shovlin.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15, George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15
Picture by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Pictures
“Going into the weekend, we actually had sector two in Brazil, which has a number of these corners, on our radar as an space that we’d wrestle.
“The massive focus in these remaining races for us is studying what we are able to. We’re able within the championship the place we can not problem in entrance of us. It is rather unlikely we’re going to see any problem from behind.
“Our focus has very a lot shifted to studying what we have to this yr to use to subsequent yr with a view to get on high of these points.”
Regardless of its struggles within the rain throughout the Brazilian weekend, Shovlin pointed to the benefits of having the ability to run the automobile within the moist as a part of its studying course of forward of the brand new marketing campaign.
“In Brazil, it was helpful having that moist working since you need to get a learn on the automobile within the moist,” he added. “There may be all the time a number of moist quali and race classes over the yr. It was reassuring to see that the tempo in these circumstances was first rate.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director, Mercedes-AMG F1 Crew, on the pit wall
Picture by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Pictures
“However we’re going to be all of the remaining tracks to evaluate efficiency and simply verify what we perceive about this automobile and whether or not the adjustments we hope to make for subsequent yr are going to enhance these areas.”
On the particular traits that may be reviewed, Shovlin mentioned: “Vegas has a number of straight line and low-speed corners. Qatar is a quicker monitor after which, ending in Abu Dhabi, which is a mixture of all the things, it should give us a great learn on how we’re performing and who’s the benchmark.
“Typically it’s Purple Bull, generally McLaren, generally Ferrari, however it should enable us to determine the hole that we have to shut down over these winter months.”
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